To upgrade ot build from scratch

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in the early 2000s, I used to rebuild every 6mths to a year when new products came out... but with most games not being so demanding (mainly due to console ports and lazy developers), my last computer lasted 5 years and my current is on 7 years. It is no longer able to play newer titles at 30+fps on decent graphics settings. The thing is that the current prices of RAM and GPUs is ridiculous (although GPUs are starting to drop). I am considering just upgrading my video card, but as I am not constantly researching hardware like I used to, I feel I am a bit out of the loop and would like some advice.

Current Rig:

i7 Sandybridge 2700k @ 4ghz (w/basic all-in-one- water cooling)

16GB DDR3

Asrock z77 Extreme 4

750watt PSU (cant remember brand, but it is branded)

120Gb crutial SSD + 6TB worth of HDD

Coolermaster HAF X case

GTX 670

If I upgraded to a GTX 1070, would the rest of the system be a bottle neck? Is there a more appropriate VGA for my needs?

I want to be able to run Dues Ex mankind divided at max and any new open world games I fancy (like Elderscrols/Fallout/Watchdogs2/Just cause 3).

Thanks for advice.

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A Sandybridge @ 4 GHz isn't too shabby and wouldn't be lacking greatly compared to current gen. Most prominent would be inferior FP performance and lack of built in USB 3.0 and SATA 3 support though addon cards overcome that.

Graphics card there is the definite weak link.

Additional to that grab a SATA3 and USB 3 PCIe card if you don't already have them. SSD performance would likely be bottlenecked if running on a Sata2 controller.

Look around, the single lane PCIe controllers are cheap but 4 lane controllers can be had for a little more - of course assuming your board has the required slots to support them. Avoid VIA chipset devices, they're crap. ASMedia is good.

Edited June 1, 2018 by Rybags

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Correct me if im wrong, but as far as I know, I have SATA3 and (First Gen) USB 3.1 ports. The transfer rate on the USB 3.1 ports is defiantly much faster than the USB 2 ports (from transferring large media files to my Galaxy S8+), but I haven't actually benchmarked it.

I have tested the SSD transfer rates and they are correct to online benchmarks I have seen.

So my system wouldn't be a restriction on a new VGA?

I have also seen comparisons between DDR3 & 4 and the conclusion was a negligible difference.

Edited June 1, 2018 by krovikan8472

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Yep, Ram differences between generations are often nowhere near as big as some would want you to believe. I got burnt in a sense with a hybrid motherboard and transitioned to DDR2 from DDR with single digit% improvement if that.

If you have the quicker Sata and USB then great. Generally the older Core-i gear had less ports and less PCIe lanes to go around, so it is a case of RTFM to see how many lanes the graphics card will get.

If your board has 2 big slots, chances are that the second one will always default to 8 or 4, and even the main slot might go from 16 to 8 in some cases.

Pay particular attention to USB and SATA enable options - on some older gen gear you can lose lanes that would otherwise go to graphics when you enable the faster USB and/or Sata capability.

Also note what generation of PCIe is being supported. Some boards will have a mix of older and newer gen. Refer Wiki articles re calculating gross possible transfer rates according to PCIe gen and # of lanes.

But again, it's a bit like the Ram thing - somewhat overrated. If the graphics card has enough onboard Ram, then the PCI lanes will be largely dormant except when textures are being transferred or shaders being programmed and more often than not that's done during level loads.

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Are you sure about that? 1060 prices generally start around the $300 mark. Even the 1050 just squeezes in under $200.

Graphics memory - it seems the more the better. I was surprised at first with the big jump in VRam from the old standard 512 Meg or 1 Gig. But consider VR which is 2 rendered images and 4K gaming, that easily explains the big jump. Plus texture quality and quantity tends to be a whole lot more than before.

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Fallout is heavy on cpu and ram speed in some places a 8700k will drop below 30fps

But for the most part your system should do ok with a gpu upgrade

A 1060 would struggle to maintain 60fps with deus ex but so will your cpu

What speed is your ram? As 2600k is about 15% faster with 2133c9 than 1600c11

8600k@5ghz with 3600c16 ram would be around 50% quicker

If you want to know how much a gpu upgrade will help just drop the res right down and disable aa this should drop the gpu load below 90% if so whatever fps your getting is probably the best a gpu upgrade can do for you